The Young Turks - John Iadarola Calls Out Cenk Uygur

Episode Date: August 31, 2019

Cenk Uygur made a stunning prediction on CNN, but John Iadarola isn’t buying it. Cenk Uygur, John Iadarola, and Matthew Scheffield, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

You're listening to the Young Turks, the online news show. Make sure to follow and rate our show with not one, not two, not three, not four, but five stars. You're awesome. Thank you. Hey, guys, you've heard of the Young Turks podcast because you're listening to it right now. But make sure that you subscribe and give it a five star rating if you like it. Thank you for listening. Dropy Drop it.

Drop it. All right, welcome the Young Turks, fun power panel for you guys. I'm feeling powerful. That's why I dropped it like that. John Iderola, will he have a job by the end of this hour. We'll find out we're going to fight immediately out of the gate. Okay, I caught him. I caught him.

The internet catches everything. Okay, you're going to get caught. That's what I tell the politicians. Matt Sheffield's here, everybody. All right, Matt used to write for The Hill, he wrote for Salon, but he was a conservative back in the day, wrote for the American conservative National Review, Washington Times, Washington Examiner, and co-created newsbusters, okay, but now is a progressive, and he's not alone on the panel, and that I used to be Republican.

In fact- I've always been awesome. Yeah, that's, well, okay, we agree to disagree, as usual. But anyways, no, seriously. Anyway, a little bit later in the program, I had an epiphany while reading one of these articles about the right wing. And it was an epiphany about myself. And it's really interesting, because stories about me are really interesting. That's an article.

No, it's in the second hour. Anna and I are gonna be here for in the second hour. I wish I can get Matt's point of view on it too, because it's about why it used to be more conservative and how it relates to. to the conservative mind. But anyway, we'll save that for a little bit later in the program. Let's check how we're doing on our attempt to do a climate crisis debate slash town hall. We've been- there it is. Washington 10-10 dollars.

5,357 individual donors. If we get to 200,000, I think we're going to do a fantastic, I hope, spectacular debate slash down hall for you guys, tyt.com slash down hall is the, is the URL, so let's go make that happen. You guys are awesome. So having said all that, let's fight. Just really fast, just to give, like, I love the behind the scene stuff, so I want people to understand how things work at TYT, the communication. Do you know when I found out about the TYT climate town hall? When I woke up and had tweets saying, you've got to be a moderator on it, and I was like, on what?

Well, look, there's a lot, look, you're not alone, John, there's a lot of people complaining that we didn't give notice on a thing that we came up with two hours before the show. Okay, well, you're right, we did not have a minute to go and tell everybody in the world. Okay, sad day for all those folks. On that note, why don't we fight? Let's fight. Okay. On yesterday's main show, Jank apparently discovered that on the damage report, I had taken issue.

with one of his bold predictions on Chris Cuomo's show. Here is what he showed on yesterday's main show. I'll predict right here for you, Chris. I think Donald Trump will leave office before his term is up. He'll be humiliated, embarrassed, and I know him. He's not going to want to lose and he's going to run for the hills. You got that bet all day long. Okay, let's get after it.

Now, so look, Jake has made some good predictions and, you know, this is most, this is in good fun. I could not disagree more. romance between the two of them. You got that bet all day long, Janky, you? Oh, you know, you stop. In the meantime, let's call him out on the damage. I just got a Roku said. It'll basically a little bit of channel surfing and I was like, there we are. There we are. And then I turn it on and it was John and Brett on damage report making fun of me. Oh, no. So you are so busted. I even took a picture of it, okay?

They're talking about my predictions? I got a new prediction for you, John I'd rolla. I actually missed, what was the prediction? Yeah, I'm playing, I'm playing. Okay, so first let's start with the premises for the prediction that Donald Trump will not be in office by the end of his term. Now, if you watch The Young Turks, you're not at all surprised by that. I've been saying that literally from day one.

But I wanted to say it on CNN, and it was in the context of how disastrously Donald Trump is going with his polling numbers, et cetera. So, and as I told you from day one, there's a couple of reasons why I made that prediction. One, Donald Trump is not capable of managing himself out of a wet paper bag. So he's never failed to declare bankruptcy on anything that he's ever run, and it doesn't take that long. And so I'm actually quite shocked that he's lasted this long. And so he's, it's gonna be an epic debacle and it certainly has been an epic debacle

in many ways. But part and parcel that prediction was at some point the economy crashes because Trump will do such maniacal things that he can't help but crash the economy. So we're teetering on that edge. Now, his polling is anywhere between 36 to at most generous as 43%, averaging about 40%. That is terrible numbers, terrible numbers already. any normal circumstance, you would have no chance at reelection if you're an incumbent polling around 40%. Now, yes, we do have 14 months left. Now, when everybody, including

the Trump administration, believes that we're gonna hit a recession. If we hit that recession, which is again, we're on the precipice of, nobody's rooting for it, but it's a reality that even the Republicans acknowledge yesterday. We did a story about several Republican senators going, oh no, here comes the recession, right? Then Trump's gonna dip into the 20s. And is two set of things that are going to happen. And again, all of this I said from the very beginning. And it's coming to fruition, I believe, as we speak. Look, you've got his legal troubles to begin with, and he's a crook, lifelong criminal.

I knew he'd continue to be a lifelong criminal and a con man. But when the economy crashes, that's when the donors run. And that's when the donors tell the Republicans release the hounds. This guy's not going to win anyway, he's gonna pull down the rest of the Republican senators and House members. And then there's this, so there's the Republicans and their driving engine being the donors abandoning him when the market crashes. And they already got their tax cuts.

And so, and again, go all the way back to the beginning, I said they're gonna, the one thing they're gonna do is tax cuts. And once they got the tax cuts, they don't need that schlep anymore, right? Or that schmuck anymore. And then the last part of it is Trump doesn't like being humiliated. You think he wants to go and lose 40 states? They're gonna get slaughtered in this next election. So again, you're gonna think I'm overconfident, yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard it a thousand times

before. So, and if you remember, I've been saying all along, he's not gonna get impeached, he's gonna resign. I said, he's gonna wake up, you're gonna wake up one morning, you're like, Trump is gone, what do you mean he's gone? Yeah, this morning, he resigned. People are gonna go, what, right? So I, I'm never gonna be moved up, you're gonna be the last day in office, I'm like, Tick, tick, tick.

Well, I'm glad that you brought up the Tick, Tick, Tick. I want you have an opportunity to jump in first. What do you think? Does he make it to election day? Does he run for re-election? Oh, he runs for re-election, gets wiped out, and tries to stay on as long as he possibly can't. Two reasons.

One, he is addicted to being president. This is a guy who everyone, his whole life has thought, is a loser, liar, con man, sleazy. And basically, he only fools a few people. people here and there. Like, that's his whole career. And so now he's in a position of authority where people actually have to be nice to him. So he's never had anything like that before. So he's addicted to being the president, number one.

Number two is that if he leaves office early, he's going to get prosecuted. And that was basically like Bob Mueller has repeatedly said that, I would have done some other stuff here, but you know what, I can't indict the president. So, okay, but not gonna happen. So Matt, those are two reasons I would turn around on you, okay? So the weaker case is, he's addicted to being powerful in president, but if you get humiliated in the elections, well, you've lost that power. Remember, he often will run and then go, oh, I would have won.

I mean, I would have won, I would have done this, I would have done that, but I mean, I didn't want it anyway. Remember, he's a child. Yeah, so I didn't want it anyway is such a classic child move. But the stronger cases, see, I was, I got frustrated when I realized the Democrats were never going to take action against them, never going to hold them accountable. And I was like, Chank, you know, are you sure? I was doubting myself for a second there.

It's a record. It's a record. Yes, that's right. And so, and I had not calculated, which I should have, the depth of the weakness of the Democrats, how pathetic they are, that they wouldn't challenge him at all. Now get a load of this, Trump might resign because he thinks, well, I'm never going to be prosecuted. Like, if he was really worried that he was going to go to prison afterwards, then he'd want to hold on for a dear life as most fascists do. But he thinks, oh my God, they're never going to prosecute me.

Pelosi, these Democrats, and these prosecutors are losers. They're going to let me get away with everything. All right, then I'm out of here and I'll pretend I would have won. I do agree with the not prosecuting. I think that Donald Trump could shoot one of Pelosi's colleagues dead. I don't think that she would do anything about it, unfortunately. But I disagree with a lot. I know, it's a reference to his.

No, I know. He started it, and he's the president. But I disagree with a lot of the rest of what you guys are saying. Look, I can't imagine him stepping down. I think that that would be a humiliation. I have no doubt that he would spin it as I was forced out by a coup. He's going to talk about it for the rest of his life. But I think he's going to run, and I think it's going to be difficult for a number of different reasons.

First of all, it depends on how we come out of this primary. If we have a good progressive, significantly easier. If we have Joe Biden, who knows what's going to happen on election day. And so that definitely matters. But then also, we have the electoral college. We have voter suppression. We have all of these things that are designed to make it more challenging and closer than it should be. So I don't think that we should get too excited about anything.

Polls, the economy. I'm not convinced that if the economy tanks, it will hurt him, at least, with his base. Maybe with independence. Sure, and maybe that's enough for him to lose. In terms of him stepping out before the election though, so you mentioned the tick, tick, tick. So we had had a bet at one point about whether he would make it to the midterms. Yes. Which I don't think I ever got paid for.

But do you remember, do you remember at one point, TYT, we set up a pool, the resignation impeachment pool. Oh. And we each signed up for a month. Oh, this was going to sting. So here's the thing. I have to tell you, your month came and went. Oh, really? Do you wanna know what month that was?

It was gonna be, it's early. It's, to be fair, it's October 21st, 2017. Ooh, it's a while ago. So, yeah, I hear you, and that is fair to bring up. I'm not a Republican, so I don't disagree with your facts. Although you didn't pay, though. That does make me more Republican. No, no, I don't, look, I didn't know we had a physical bed.

bed. But if you look that up, find that, I'll definitely pay you. I hate people who don't pay bets. But I haven't acknowledged that I lost that bet to Anna. So look, I thought for sure that it would happen before the midterms. I was obviously wrong about that. And so, but if you watch the Young Turks a long time, you also know my timing is off and off.

So it'll come true, but like way later than I realized, okay? Well, actually to that point, the way later, so every, every. remaining TYT employee that signed up for a month, it's come and gone. Do you know the next? The only person whose time hasn't come and gone yet is Bart in the control room. He signed up for August 9th, 2024. I think he might win this thing. No, no way, no way.

I do hope not. Yeah, look, guys, we're just having fun. Obviously. We'll see what happens. But here, I'll give you a couple quick. two statewide polls to give you a sense of how badly he's going to get humiliated. So New Hampshire, which his campaign is now talking about how they're going to win that state, even though they lost it last time.

Well, in January of 2017, so during inauguration, you know, every new president has a bump up. Even though he lost New Hampshire, he had a positive approval rating in New Hampshire because Americans are open-hearted and they're like, let's give the guy a chance. That's a honeymoon. Yeah, honeymoon. And he was just plus one in New Hampshire, much better in other states, but plus one. I want in New Hampshire. You know what he's pulling out right now in New Hampshire?

Minus 17, okay? Now Wisconsin, he won Wisconsin and he got an even bigger bump. He barely won it, and then inauguration, he's at plus six, nice and healthy, okay? He's now at minus 14, minus 14 in Wisconsin. Like so, Wisconsin's gone, Michigan is at minus 11, Iowa is at minus 11, Arizona is at minus 11, Arizona's at minus 7, Pennsylvania is at minus 8, et cetera. And the academy hasn't even crashed yet. Tick, tick, tick.

Yeah, well, although, but one, there's a couple of things to think about though. One is that, as John was saying, you can't take anything for granted, especially in today's political environment. But two is that it matters a lot who the Democratic nominee is because a lot of people in 2016 went and voted for Trump even though they didn't like him. That's true. And that's because the entirety of all conservative political operations isn't to get a majority to like them or to agree with them.

That's something that a lot of progressives haven't figured out. And, you know, again, I was there. I know how they think. They literally say to themselves, it doesn't matter if a majority of Americans agree with us. All that matters is if a majority of voters laid out where we want them. Yeah, that's all that they care about. No, Matt, that's a terrific point. And the only thing that I'll say, I don't even mind being overconfident here.

The only thing that I'll give is a very important caveat is. Of course it depends on who the Democrats pick to be their candidate. If they make the same exact mistake they did last time, yeah, nobody likes Donald Trump, but let's put up an establishment candidate that tells you big business is great, big media is great, politicians are great, Washington is great, yeah, well that's the only way you can lose to Donald Trump. Did they make that same mistake? Yeah.

Uh-oh. I think if it's Biden for a few different reasons, he still would have a better chance, especially because Donald Trump is less popular than he was back in 2016. But if it's Biden, there will be some voters who will not support him. I honestly think that no matter who they choose, even if they choose Bernie, my number one, there will be some percentage of voters who will not support a major party candidate. Like, so you just, you can't take anything for granted. Well, I mean, yeah, look, look, Illinois, when Barack Obama ran for Senate the first time,

Alan Keyes was his opponent. Alan Keyes is certifiable. He got 25% of the vote. Yeah, and there you have. This guy was a lunatic, literally crazy. And I just wanna make one point clear, because it was in the Cuomo clip. Right after you finished talking, they went to the other guy, I'm not familiar with his name, and he started talking about how he's not hoping for a recession.

Jake never once implied that he wanted a recession. They just keep saying that if you predict one, you're hoping for one. possibly causing one, and that is 100% disingenuous. So that's Nigerianus, but in the case of my prediction of Trump leaving office, I'm both predicting it and hoping for it. Not the recession, but Trump leaving office. And look, 25% of this country is certifiable, they'll vote for anyone. So, but I think Trump is going to get to that, holding on to just that 25%.

And I love that I found that clip on Roku. Today we're doing the show exclusively on Roku, Pluto, Zumo, and YouTube TV are outlets and TYT.com, if you're a member. So everybody, check us out on Roku and Pluto, Zumo, YouTube TV. Yeah. All right. Yeah, that's it for now. We should probably take our first break.

Really fast, though. If you do go and you watch on your Roku the damage report, I didn't burn Jank today. But we did have an awesome speech that Bernie gave back in the 90s on military spending. We updated it with some mind-blowing figures from more recent years. So take a look at that episode of The Damage Port. Yeah, and by the way, guys, so when you go to those channels, it's 24-hour station. We got a cable station just like all the rest of them. It has all of our shows on it.

So check us out anytime on those channels. All right, we'll be right back. We need to talk about a relatively new show called Un-F-The Republic or UNFTR. As a Young Turks fan, you already know that the government, the media, and corporations are constantly peddling lies that serve the interests of the rich and powerful. But now there's a podcast dedicated to unraveling those lies, debunking the conventional wisdom. In each episode of Un-B-The-Republic or UNFTR, the host delves into a different historical

episode or topic that's generally misunderstood or purposely obfuscated by the so-called powers that be, featuring in-depth research, razor-sharp commentary, and just the right amount of vulgarity, the UNFTR podcast takes a sledgehammer to what you thought you knew about some of the nation's most sacred historical cows. But don't just take my word for it. The New York Times described UNFTR as consistently compelling and educational, aiming to challenge conventional and upend the historical narratives that were taught in school. For as the great philosopher Yoda once put it, you must unlearn what you have learned. And that's true whether you're in Jedi training or you're uprooting and exposing all the propaganda and disinformation you've been fed

over the course of your lifetime. So search for you and FDR in your podcast app today and get ready to get informed, angered, and entertained all at the same time. All right, back on Aangertr's a couple comments for you guys. Stuart writes in, if Trump does step down, I guarantee that his excuse would be, I never wanted it anyway, I got better things to do than being the president. So Stewart's thinking along the same lines that I am. But if he does step down, that's a guarantee that he's going to say that. I didn't want it. And I would have won. And Trump TV next day. Exactly. In fact, another somebody else wrote about that. And that's why yesterday he was tweeting about, oh, we got to have a different network in Fox News. He already

He knows he's going to lose. On the other hand, he thought he was going to lose last time. Well, no, and that's, he literally was planning to do Trump TV. But then he won. Like, he didn't even think he was going to win. He literally said publicly, I told my wife I thought I was going to lose. He said that. Yeah, I saw it on tape.

I think he'll do the TV, but I think he will do tours as well. I think he wants to do the rallies. Oh, yeah, yeah, of course. He loves the rallies. People giving emagulation, are you kidding? He lives for that, as Matt pointed out earlier. TYT Southern Cross Rays and I hope Jake is right, but I don't see Trump leaving under any circumstances. It's going to take the secret service hauling his arse out of there.

And then last one is from Twitter. Yupur Meg says I had a local progressive customer today, rare in my small town, who I had a wonderful discussion with about current political issues. He had never heard of TYT before and immediately went to check them out. I hope you have a new fan. Well, thank you, Yupor Megs. We appreciate that. Spread the word, everybody, definitely.

And speaking of spreading the word, aspiration.com slash GYT. If you don't know, there is actually a progressive financial institution. I know that is exceedingly rare, and they actually give 10% of their money to charity. They don't put money into fossil fuels, private prisons, gun companies, they don't put your money there. Because remember, banks have to make money by using depositor money, and almost all the other banks put it in the worst kind of places. They take your money and put those into those different kind of investments that actually wind up destroying the planet. But Aspiration doesn't do that. And it lets you set any fees you want, including up to zero.

All ATMs are zero, and the interest rates are way above the rest of the banks. And that's because they don't have actual stores, which makes it a lot cheaper to operate. And they can give you a better service, it's all online, okay? So check it out. You don't have to move all of your money, you can just move a little bit. aspiration.com slash t-y-t, see if it's right for you. All right, John, what's next? Okay, let's have a little bit of fun, possibly a little debate.

AOC is getting criticized today for blocking a small number of users on Twitter, and we found out about this, where you find out about everything these days on Twitter, with Columbia University's Knight First Amendment Institute tweeting out late yesterday, Knight Columbia sent this letter to AOC, urging her not to block Twitter users on the basis of viewpoint. You can take a look at that letter if you'd like available at that link to get their argumentation. We're gonna talk a little bit about it as it's applied in the past to Donald Trump in just a little bit, but first I wanted to give AOC's response to that.

She tweeted back, I have 5.2 million followers, less than 20 accounts are blocked for ongoing harassment. Zero are my constituents. Harassment is not a viewpoint. Some accounts, like the Daily Caller, posted fake nude photos of me and abused my comments to spread it. No one is entitled to abuse. People are free to speak whatever classist, racist, false, misogynistic, bigoted comments

they'd like. They do not have the right to force others to endure their harassment and abuse. And this is a serious thing, like this is technology and politics coming together, we have to hash it out, we're gonna have a debate in just a minute, and serious minds online have different perspectives, and they hone in on the important points, including Laura Ingram, who tweeted back fewer than 20 accounts, because AOC had written less than 20 accounts. accounts and that's what a host on TV who makes a million or two million dollars a year focused on.

No way she makes a lot of money. And she's a very serious person, far more respectable than anyone sitting at this table, of course. AOC responded in exactly the fashion I would have hoped saying, see, you're a neo-Nazi fan favorite and I don't block you for defending white supremacist viewpoints and mocking gun violence survivors. Difference of opinion, she didn't block her. Good job, AOC.

So look, in terms of the legal argument here, and it's cited by Columbia University, last year, Judge Naomi Rice Buchwald found that Donald Trump's Twitter feed is a public forum. As a result, she ruled that when Mr. Trump or an aide blocked seven plaintiffs from viewing and replying to his posts, he violated the First Amendment. Now, they ruled that it was a violation of the Constitution. There was no injunction to unblock those people. It's been appealed since then, and there are some people. that remain blocked.

Now, to give you an idea of what we're comparing here, she said that she'd blocked less than 20 people, not based on viewpoint, just based on targeted harassment. In the past, Donald Trump has blocked author Stephen King, Votevets.org, a group that represents 500,000 vets in their families. Marina Sertes, who played counselor Troy on Star Trek the next generation. Oh, no, not counselor, Troy. But she might have been able to help him. Exactly.

Rosie O'Donnell, friend of the network, Jordan. Just about all these people. He blocked Jordan. He blocked sci-fi actors. And Jordan and progressive activists. Yeah. I could have understood if it was a Ferengi, but- Exactly.

Well, hey, he didn't want her getting inside his mind. Oh, that's a good point. He probably does believe that, though. He's like, let alone if she's operating a windmill, I'm going to give me cancer. You can block a full made of Z, but a half-man. No. Anyway, that's gotten ready. So look, that was a wonderfully harsh snapback from AOC to Laura Ingram.

Yes. She could have been less harsh, fewer. Fewer harsh. Okay, that's actually less. Anyway, so that's fun, but let's go to the heart of the issue. And it's a difficult issue. And I'm not positive where I come out on this. So Matt, you have a clear opinion, so let's hash it out and see what we come out.

All right, well, first thing is that the Knight First Amendment Center, they They're the ones who did that lawsuit against Donald Trump. They did that. So they actually are fair and going after all politicians for blocking people. They don't want it. And I agree with them because here's why. One is that you as a federal officer cannot block American citizens because even if they're not specifically in your district or whatever, you are an officer of the country.

And if people want to see what you're saying, you can't stop them. And that is true with regard to like if you show up. at a town hall, if you're, as long as you're quiet and reasonably respectful, you cannot be ejected regardless of your viewpoint. Well, so that's exactly where the issue is, though, Matt. And I would say, no, and that is where the issue is because if you look at, so inside, so when I was at Salon, I used to report on the technology industry as well, and there's this raging debate within the tech world of how is it possible to demarcate sane conservatives from Nazis?

And it's actually really hard because computers can't do it. They're not, they can't do it. They literally cannot do it. And so that's basically, this is another manifestation of that problem. The far right, like insane fascist right is so crazy, but so adjacent to the Republican right, that it's so, this issue keeps coming up over and over and over with banning various people and things like that. And so in the case of like with AOC, if you're posting fake nude photos of somebody on Twitter,

that is a violation of Twitter's policies and that action should be reported. So well, okay, so let's talk that through, right? So you should get suspended by Twitter for that, not blocked by a politician. The issue is that Twitter doesn't take much seriously. Well, and they're busy, I mean, so, and there's a lot of them. So here's what I mean, first of all, it's a really interesting perspective from Matt, who's a former conservative and has been inside that community very deeply, and so understands that mind a little bit.

So in terms of the essence of this issue, look, if you go to the town hall and you have an opposing point of view, great, that's awesome, it's great when progressives do it to conservatives. I don't have any problem with conservatives doing it to progressives. It's a free country. That's the essence of our democracy, no problem at all. I would even say you're allowed, no problem, et cetera. You won't stop talking, okay, but we have to continue the town hall. So there's a limit to that, right?

You're abusive, et cetera, we're gonna throw you out. But that's the thing, have you ever gone on Twitter, right? So there's nonstop abuse. And now, okay, put aside, look, progressives are way tougher than conservatives. So we can take a lot of abuse and we get plenty of abuse. The right wing is insane. I never block anyone, so I kind of enjoy the insanity. Like the right wing thinks that I'm on Twitter 24-7 like they are.

So they're constantly screaming in this white circular room like, ah, you're a WhatsApp, you're over white, right? Everyone's terrible. I do this analogy. Everyone's so I go in and I see them screaming and I'm laughing laughing and then I go out, And they keep screaming. So I don't mind it, and I'm sure AOC gets unbelievable abuse. But there is a line where, you know, I can't be sending pictures of your genitalia.

Do I have to endure that if I'm a congressperson? Or Donald Trump, it doesn't matter if you're a Republican and Democrat. One thing is for certain, of course, the standard should apply to both parties, right? No question about that. And I know that Knight First Amendment Institute is obviously doing this out of principle, and And they're applying it both equal to the AOC and Trump, and I respect that. But I don't know where we draw the line, because Twitter can't sit there, I don't think, and block every insane right winger.

And if they did, they would explode. Well, well, but that's why you have a mute button on Twitter. And that's literally what the judge in that lawsuit was like, look, they got a mute button, push it. If you don't want to see, if you guys being a jerk off, well, push the mute button. Then you don't have to see it. Yeah. The only issue I have with the Knight Foundation is including in their tweet based on the basis

of viewpoint, which is pure speculation to imply that you know exactly why she banned the 17 people that she did. That's just a needless thing. You have the law on your side, I would rest on that. Don't pretend that you know why she's banning these people. For instance, she cites when fake nude photos of her were monetized by a right wing news outlet that wanted to tag her in the tweet spreading those photos. Why should she be forced to opt into that?

And that's where muting doesn't get the job done. Muting doesn't stop people from. So that's a great point. Let me just, can I just build off that real quick? So and that got me thinking because I was going to be on Matt's side overall. And I hadn't thought of a mute and that made that's a really great point. But it actually helps to promote that ideology or the fake nude pictures, et cetera, when you tag AOC.

So that component is not the same as a town hall. Like if you go to a town hall that doesn't necessarily mean you're gonna be famous or that that's gonna help, you know what I'm saying? So that using the congressperson or the president for publicity gives it an extra complication. So- No, so- But again, yeah, but if you're posting fake nude pictures of somebody, that's a violation. It should be, yeah. That's a violation.

But the right-wing can get away with anything. They're in the White House press pool. Those, like, joke of a media site, and Obama had them in the White House press pool. They're like, oh, yeah, sure, I mean, we'll let the right wing get away with anything. I mean, nobody knows that better than you, Matt. Oh, yeah, no, it's true. And, oh, well, no, go ahead, I know. Yeah, a couple things.

One, first of all, as a country, we have to have a conversation. What is actually a violation of people's First Amendment rights and what is not? Because I've noticed lots of right-wingers who say that they're for free speech, multiple of them have blocked me on Twitter. I've literally never tweeted at them, I've never tweeted about them. And yet they've preemptively blocked me before we've ever interacted in any way, which I always find to be a little bit funny. Unfortunately, for a lot of the people, and occasionally the people who talk the most about free

speech, when they mean free speech, and when they fight against violations of free speech, what they mean is stopping their ability to monetize their speech, that's it. That's as far as it goes, it doesn't apply to anyone else, it doesn't apply to non-monetary speech, it doesn't mean that they can't talk, just they're worried that they will stop making money. Well, when they mean free speech, they mean free as in they don't have to pay for it. Yeah, and that's true, and no criticism whatsoever, yeah. And I'm serious, that's literally what they think.

Yeah, I just want to say if the law comes down that public officials, even on their personal account, can't block people, which is what they said for Trump, then that's fine. Apply it to everyone, apply it to AOC as well. And although unfortunately that forces her to see things like in Texas, it was just ruled that sending people non-consensual sexual photos is sexual assault. You can do that on Twitter. So you have to be, you have to obligate these people to be sexually assaulted, which is really weird. But I will say, too, I don't care if Donald Trump blocks anyone.

I really don't. I don't, I know that it's technically, philosophically against the freedom of speech. They should have access to those tweets. And it doesn't mean that my values don't actually go against them doing that. I just, it's far down the list of priorities, I will say that. I hear you, I have a ruling. So first, a fun point. As far as I know, I've only been blocked by two people, Howard Dean and well-known free speech

advocate, Candace Owens. I just noticed Seb Gorka, never tweeted this person. I've been on his radio show, so I'm definitely not blocked. Okay, so the ruling is hit the mute button and don't block them. So that applies to Trump, that applies to AOC. Yes, they get to publicize their things a little bit by writing on your coat tails, but that's the price we pay for public officials protecting the First Amendment. So I'm gonna agree with the courts here, the Knight First Amendment and Matt.

And let's also know one final great point, which is that about a year ago, if I had told you that AOC was going to defeat one of the most powerful Democrats in the country, and then was going to be so popular that right wingers would sue her if she blocked them on Twitter saying, well, I can't, my rights have been violated if the legendary Alexandria Ocasicortez won't listen to me. Oh my God, how much have we changed the world in about a year? So enjoy that. If you block me, I can't beg you to debate me.

Anyway, sorry, I did, I did cut you off, though. Did you have another point that I wanted to make? No, I mean, like this is, it's about public official. So it's not just about being silence. It's also that they can't see what the person is saying. And that's like a government official blocking you from receiving a public notice of your, of anything that they're doing. So that's really what this is about.

It's not about free speech, it's about seeing what the government is doing. And people have a right to see what the government's doing. I think we all agree. Yeah. For the most part. Okay, let's move on to a related topic also about AOC actually. For some time, Alexandria Casa Cortez has been leading public. interest in doing something about the climate crisis pretty much throughout this year,

often in conjunction with groups like the Sunrise Movement, some other good politicians on this issue. And man, every time she brings it up, she ends up getting attacked. Here is a recent right-wing group that tweeted out a video about her recent commentary on the topic. Shallow Thoughts with Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Hey, we know you probably hit play to escape your business banking, not think about it. But what if we told you there was a way to skip over the pressures of banking? By matching with the TD Small Business Account Manager, you can get the proactive business banking advice and support your business needs. Ready to press play? Get up to $2,700 when you open select small business

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And so that was sent out about her. She did respond to it on Twitter saying, I love everything about this GOP attack ad, Republicans underestimate my intelligence because I invite people into my home and talk about policy in plain English instead of DC jargon. They think that's dumb, so they end up paying for ads that spread and explain our policy positions. So I love this, and there's so many great eyes. First of all, Republicans are like, oh, you know, AOC's not smart.

You are a follower and supporter of Donald Trump. Mr. Hamburger. He's a genius. Okay, hilarious, hilarious, okay. But now the second irony, they're like, can you believe, she believes 99% of the world's scientists? That's so stupid. Obviously all the scientists are wrong. Who's with me?

Who's with me? God, you guys, you're such mouth breathers. And it's so hilarious to see you bathing. in your ignorance and say, no, I've got it figured out, and ExxonMobil's got it figured out, and the Koch brothers do, but all the scientists are wrong, and everybody else is wrong, and even though we can see the temperature rising for the last 17 years straight, even though the snow forest of Alaska is currently on fire, and so is an area the size of Vermont in Siberia, I don't see it, can you believe they think it's coming, Jake?

That's so stupid. I mean, come on. I mean, I'm not allowed to make that voice, right? But that's fine, that's almost all remaining conservatives. And I can say that as a former Republican. Look, I'm gonna get into a little bit here of another attack against Greta Thunberg, N-A-O-C, and an interesting part of that, an epiphany I had about it. But there's another former conservative here that's mad.

So look, am I being too mean here, or what's your take on their climate denial? Well, I mean, this ad reminded me exactly of that Fox News graphic that they put up on the screen one time that was like AOC favors, you know, free college, health care for everyone, raising taxes on rich people, like those are all positions that Americans agree with. And so, but the thing is, right wingers, they don't understand anything about polls. And like I literally part of why I stopped being one was I was like, look guys, this is what the data shows, you know, maybe you should change your positions to, or at least modify how you talk about stuff. And they're like, no, people agree with this. Look, Ronald Reagan won in 1984.

Like they literally say that. No, like the people who made that ad literally said that very statement to me. So no, no, I want you to understand how literal it is. Matt used to work in the media research center that did that at. Yeah. Okay. You didn't make this one, did you? No, no, no.

No, but no, like literally those guys have said to me, Ronald Reagan won in 1984, so therefore we don't need to change anything we do or how we talk about stuff. Yeah, you know, the person who agrees with them is Nancy Pelosi. Ryan Grimm writes about this, it is an excellent book, We've Got People, which you can get on shop, t.y.t.com, you could also get this, I wrote the damn bill, t-shirt there. He talks about how the Democrats are stuck in the 1980s, where they got their ass handed to him by Reagan, and they've never, they're like, oh, my God, the Republicans are right about everything.

76% of the country wants to raise taxes on the rich. So when, Matt's right, when Fox News puts that up, three quarters of the country goes, oh, that sounds pretty good. Who said that? AOC? That's pretty good. Right? And by the way, I went, and I was working at the Hill before I moved out to California.

I wrote the first poll question about AOC's tax plan, and we found that number. We kicked it all off in all these other news organizations. We're like, oh, wow, look at that, let's do it ourselves. And they confirmed the same thing we found. But the thing is, right-wingers never read polls. And so they don't understand that everyone hate what they think is so great. And one of the things that's distressed me a lot over the past few years is the rising, at least on social media.

I know that Twitter's not representative of literally anything, but the number of people who don't think that polls are real. I don't mean like a particular poll, like taking issue with methodology, the sampling of one poll. I mean, they don't think that polls are a thing. Like fundamentally, they think, oh, nationally representative 2,000 people, 2,000 people, I wasn't one of them. Like, honestly, they have no idea what it is.

No, no, no, like I used to run a TV show about polls, and I'll tell you, we got all the time on Twitter, I never knew anyone who's been polled, I've never been pulled, fake news. Exactly, yeah, and that's why there are bad polls, individual bad polls. I hesitate to break those down because I don't want to play into the ignorance that leads to people thinking that all polls are untrue. The 2016 election, I think, caused a lot of people to falsely believe the polls don't work because they think, well, everybody was saying that Hillary was definitely gonna win and Trump ended up winning the electoral college.

And so the polls are wrong, even though the polls nationally were saying Hillary was up by like two or three points and she won by two or three points nationally, everybody thinks that polls are BS because of 2016. And by the way, I warned you about Pennsylvania because the polls showed that Trump was really close in Pennsylvania. So that was also true. All right, look, last two things that are really important here, and both about ignorance, including mine.

So the Republicans celebrate ignorance, so that's why they don't agree with all the world scientists. That's why they attack professors, because they bring you knowledge. They attack polls because it brings you facts. They attack the media, because from time to time they bring you facts. So anything that brings you facts, knowledge, they attack because they want it to be replaced by their propaganda. Now to my ignorance, as I was reading a great story from the new republic called the misogyny of climate deniers and how much they attacked the young Swedish girl, Greta Thunberg, who's

now gotten some fame for fighting against the climate crisis and AOC, I realized why I used to participate in that 20, 25 years ago back when I was a Republican. And it has to do with, and the thrust of the article is why are climate deniers the same subgroup as misogynist? It's such a weird combination. Why do those circles overlap so much? And I think I know because I used to be a Republican. And this is a funny and embarrassing thing to admit.

But back then, I was not as successful with women. that bred insecurity, and that insecurity caused a person to lash out and try to be more fake macho, right? Oh, yeah, being in favor of climate change, that's weak, right? Being in, like, I remember, I've told you guys this recently, making fun of myself, my past self in a sense, I didn't believe mold was real. I did not hear this. Yeah, what a bizarre thing to not believe.

But there was this sense of bathing in ignorance was macho, right? Caring about the world is feminine. Caring about other people is feminine. And feminine is bad because they're rejecting me. So I have to fight against that. And the more success that I had in dating, the more liberal I became, not because like, oh, okay, women softened me up or anything like that. It's more like I dropped the insecurity and the lack of confidence.

And once you have a normal, healthy degree of confidence, you're like, wait, why am I being weirdly so-called macho, which is in a lot of cases misogynistic? Why am I lashing out at facts? What a weird thing to do. And it's born out of insecurity. Yeah, well, and it's in a great point, and it's actually borne out by a lot of other people's experience as well, actually, because if you look at, so the rise of white nationalism and the Republican Party.

There's like different vectors of how they've all come together. One is through the Ron Paul people, former Ron Paul worshippers. But also there's a big contingent that came out of the manosphere of the dating blog sites where they would go and tell, but these were hocksters and fraudsters who would make money telling men who couldn't get a date and say, look, pay me money and I'll tell you how to get laid. And what's been really amazing is that so many of these scammers and hucksters who were doing this stuff to men, they have now become Nazis. It's just incredible.

Like you go one after the other, Roos and Harteist and all these guys who were used to say, oh, I'm so successful with ladies, I can tell you exactly what to do. And fast forward three years later, it's highly it's there. Yeah, that is amazing. Yeah. All right, we gotta take a quick break, guys. We've got a lot more amazing coming at you when we come back. So we'll be right back.

We hope you're enjoying this free clip from the Young Turks. If you want to get the whole show and more exclusive content while supporting independent media, become a member at t.com slash join today. In the meantime, enjoy this free segment. All right, back on the Young Turks. Dare Machina writes in the member's comment section. When a scientist says there's going to be any clips where we run outside. see it.

When a scientist says a hurricane is coming, we buy water and bread but also prepare to evacuate. When 99% of scientists say we need to do something before we irreparably damage the planet, what do scientists know about science? It's true, I mean, the example, those are great examples, the example I use is gravity. Do you ever, like, hey, if you're on a cliff, you could say, I don't believe in 99% of the scientists, I'm gonna step off. I wouldn't recommend it, but have at it, Haas, by the way, don't have at it. Don't do that.

Scientists are correct. Okay, Justin says, there's nothing normal or healthy about Jenks' level of confidence, but I love it all the same. Well, thank you Justin, I appreciate it. Nikki Goldenheart says, tomorrow is my birthday, I'm home recovering from surgery complications and getting some wishes from you would make me feel so much better. Love, Ty, well, Nikki, love right back at you. Feel better, okay?

And happy early birthday. Yeah, that's right. Evil Morty says, in Trump's defense, I would have blocked Deanna Troy as well. She was a jar-jar binks of Star Trek. Boom! How could you say that? No wonder, evil Morty? What kind of a person who says that?

Although her costume was-do I want to ban them. Her costume was Texas, so let's be honest. Yes, yes. Against her, but that wasn't her decision. She was awesome, not only on the next generation, but also in her couple of guest appearances on Voyager. She was great. You take that back.

One of the best characters Okay Miles Hill on YouTube Super Chat says I'm a veteran Never heard of this vow of silence that Mattis took referring to our story from yesterday I swore an oath to the Constitution

not the president and Richard Smith just says Love you guys Thank you Richard right back at you All right what's next John What's next? It's some fun Let's watch Jesus was like a staunch capitalist

man at the end of the day No I just I don't know No Jesus was very much If you had to pick No What area Jesus was it? Jesus was very clear. Bible's very clear. Okay, so you see there some hosts on the Blaze having a little conversation that this conversation has happened many times in many forums. There's no real point to it, but is Jesus a socialist

or a capitalist? And it turns out, guys, for the first time, the Bible kind of supports whatever you want it to because there's evidence on both sides. It's never happened before. I am going to argue that in my research, he seems to be more in favor of at least the aims of socialism, if not the actual mechanisms of any particular way of formulating the economy. Are you kidding me? No, no, you're being way too soft. So I get it, you could find maybe one or two verse in the Bible where you could argue he's a capitalist, but I'm not sure you can even do that.

Anyway, I think the great majority of the Bible would make Karl Marx blush. So Jesus said, give away all of your worldly possessions. Marks didn't even say that. Jesus said it's harder for a rich man to get into heaven than for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle. So if you're rich at all, at all, you can't go to heaven. I'm telling you, Marx would be like, hey, hey, brother, you're taking it too far. Right?

So I did have that. I do have another section that I want to read. While doing research for this, I came across a video from just a couple of months ago of Russell Brand and Reza Aslan having a conversation. And it was unexpectedly fascinating. His analysis- I wouldn't think that's unexpected, they're both fairly brilliant. No, I mean about, no, obviously they're brilliant. I'm talking about the topic.

It's not something that I normally would be all that invested in, whether or not a person who lived thousands of years ago who might not have actually existed, supported one form of the economy or another. But it was fascinating. And Rezaa was pointed to a couple parts of the Bible, including the section you read, but also this from Luke. So when he says Jesus goes through his, you know, blessed be the meek, blessed be all these things, there's another section to that that people don't quote, where it's the flip side.

So first he's blessing all these people, but what about the people he's not blessing? So he says, but woe to you who are rich, for you have already received your comfort, woe to you who are well fed now, for you will go hungry, woe to you who laugh now, for you will mourn and weep, woe to you when everyone speaks well of you, for that is how their ancestors treated the false prophets. It's just explicitly saying those who have done well under the current system, I'm coming for you, or at least fate is. And he makes the point, and I think it's fascinating, and I want to read his most recent book

I possibly have him on the show, is that people say that they can read into the Bible that Jesus was for equality. And he says, no, Jesus was not for equality. He was for turning upside down the social order. He didn't want the poor to be as wealthy as the rich, he wanted the rich to go down and the poor to be blessed. Yeah, well, and the reality is that anybody trying to project modern philosophies onto a guy who lived thousands of years ago, barely wore shoes, you know, it's just bogus.

I mean, Jesus, you know, in the first, the earliest Christians, it was an end of the world cult. Like, that's what it was. They thought the world was going to end. You read the Bible, and Jesus repeatedly says, this is all going to go away, go away. It's all going away and going to burn. And that's literally what the early Christians believe. Like, they didn't want to get married.

They didn't want to have sex. because they thought everything was going to die, and everything was going to be reborn. So this idea that, you know, you can project stuff onto him, it's just nonsense. Like, he was like, look, these rich guys, they're going to get burned up by God. So you don't have to, you don't have anything to worry. But he said, don't worry about what you're going to wear tomorrow because the world's going to end. Like, that's literally what the point in the New Testament really is.

Well, to be fair, he didn't have his shoes because he burned his Nike's after the Colin Kaepernick. Oh, yeah. Yeah, and I love that somebody called Jesus socialist, one, because it's overwhelmingly true. Again, Marxist doesn't do it justice, but also because it forced this knucklehead to be like, no way, man, Jesus loved the big banks and oil companies, he's a capitalist, right? And so, and even the other two blazos are like, yeah, there's more nuance coming from Yeah, not really true, man.

You could see her face, like, panicking. The panic was in her face. This ring is about to go off the rails here, and I'm going to get killed. I think there's a lot that could be learned by that period in history. No one else has tried to learn any lessons from it, but I will. So Jesus said that the poor should be rich and the rich should be poor. And what did the rich do to him? They crucified him.

And so look at the people now who are advocating. to benefit the working class, the poor. Look at how they're being treated by those in positions of power. And often, those are the people most often bashing you over the head with the Bible, a book that they love to wield, but not so much read. Well, and that segment illustrates, if you watch the whole thing, the host, the guy with a hat, he literally was like, oh, Jesus didn't have a job? And it's like, have you even read the Bible?

I mean, again, I'm an atheist, so I actually read the Bible. It helped me become one. And Jesus had a job. And anybody who has actually read the Bible would know that he was a carpenter. I've seen the bumper stickers. My boss is a Jewish carpenter. Although the only thing, just because I learned a lot of the video, I do have to add that in his research on his most recent book, Rezaalzan says that the translation that resulted in the modern carpenter is actually fairly inaccurate.

That implies that he's some sort of middle class guy with his own tools and stuff like that. He said it actually translates better to something like itinerant handyman or day labor, basically. He would wander from town to town looking for any works that he could get. Yeah, no, it's true. I found him on TaskRabbit. Oh, yeah? Fiverr? I did actually, Jesus.

Although, no, but think about the implication of that, though. Like, the entire Republican policy is about exploiting people who are day laborers and making sure they can't get citizenship, making sure that people cannot get paid for their work. I mean like carpentry like that is really difficult stuff. It takes a long time to do it well and they don't want you to get paid for it. Last thing guys, do you remember what Jesus did first? He came and threw the money changers out of the temple. For these guys to say, oh no, Jesus was a great capitalist.

Come on, look, that's why I left whatever nominal beliefs I had about Islam after I read the Quran. And then I read the Bible and I was like, whoa! None of this makes any sense. And so, and that's how we became atheist by reading it. But if you're going to stay true Christian, Muslim, whatever it is, read your texts. Because they're amazing and quite literally unbelievable. But if you do believe them, you cannot possibly make the claim that Jesus was a capitalist.

I mean, he, again, he goes way further than any modern socialist, communist, or Marxist. And if he was an advisor to Bernie Sanders, and he said, look, not only should we help the poor, but let's make sure that all the rich suffer and never get any reward, Bernie Sanders would kick him out of his campaign. He'd be like, this guy's way too much. Yeah, and also so anti-war that he literally doesn't even believe in self-defense. You're not even supposed to defend yourself to that extent, and that is often whitewashed away from him, too. But Jesus wants you to have a gun, like that's in our clip. That's true. That's true.

That's not clip. Jesus would want you to have a gun. I mean, he didn't have one, but he'd want you to. Really? Jesus didn't have a gun? Nice point, guy with a hat and has a American fly with a gun in it. It's in two Corinthians. Exactly.

You turn the other cheek as you reach for your Glock. We don't have any affiliation with this channel, but it was fascinating. So look up Russell and Rez Ozlan. It was a great interview. All right, guys. We've got to take a break. Matt, thanks for being on. Really appreciate it.

Thank you, John. Everybody check out Damage Report. If you're watching on Roku, Pluto, Zuma, or YouTube TV, we're on 24 hours, and you'll catch damage report a couple of times. All right. We'll be right back. Thanks for listening to the full episode of the Young Turks. Support our work. Listen to ad-free. Access members, only bonus content, and more by subscribing to Apple Podcasts at apple.com at apple.combe. I'm your host, Jank Huger, and I'll see you soon.